Hayao Miyazaki

Coming Out of Retirement for One More Film

Hayao Miyazaki – Photograph: Studio Ghibli/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Hayao Miyazaki, beloved animator and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, announced that he will be coming out of retirement (again) to do just one more film. Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, author, and manga artist, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and as a maker of anime feature films.

Movie poster Japan release: Spirited Away

This is fantastic news for those of us who can’t get enough of Miyazaki’s work. Throughout the more than five decades of his career (so far), he has had a hand in over thirty full feature length and short films. At least four of those feature films are among the top fifteen highest grossing anime films worldwide, with Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ponyo in the top three spots and Princess Mononoke in at number seven. And of the top fifteen, eight are from Studio Ghibli.

Movie poster Japan release: Howl’s Moving Castle

Masterful Storyteller

Miyazaki earned the nickname, Japanese Walt Disney, and rightly so. He has a talent like no other. It’s not just his ability to draw, but includes his knack for telling a story, for a seemingly endless stream of movie ideas, his fantastic writing and screen writing, and directing. He’s been described as a combination of Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, and Orson Welles.

Movie poster Japan release: Ponyo

In 2013, Miyazaki officially announced (not for the first time) that he would be retiring from doing feature length films. Since then he’s been working on other projects and short films, including one called Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Caterpillar), which he now wants to make into a full-length feature film. He has the film’s completion and release slated for 2019 (it generally takes him 3-5 years to finish a feature film). He jokes that he’ll be 78 when it’s done…”Maybe I’ll be alive?” Age is obviously not slowing him down. “I think it’s still better to die when you are doing something than dying when you are doing nothing.”

Movie poster Japan release: Princess Mononoke

Miyazaki has been a traditional artist all this time. As in, analog. He recently started learning how to use a tablet for animation, but he still relies heavily on pencil and paper, claiming that traditional methods are the foundation. The man is a perfectionist. Infamously picky, in fact. He doesn’t believe in doing anything unless you’re going to go all in and do your best and give 100% to each endeavor. If not, “then step down,” he says. “Quit ASAP.”

A Talent Worth Waiting For

We are grateful that he’s coming out of retirement to do another film and we look forward to being spirited away to yet another one of his magical tales. I don’t think anyone will be surprised if he announces that he’s going back into retirement after this film is completed.

But the question is, how do you…and is it even possible to…retire a creative mind?

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Photo Sources:

Princess Mononoke https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3768541

Spirited Away By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1415032

Howl’s Moving Castle By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7596766

Ponyo By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18628496